


Constant in the Darkness

by Neelh



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Era, Fluff, M/M, Suicide, at least the start is fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 22:44:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1281541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neelh/pseuds/Neelh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The silence woke him, and he looked up absently. His gaze was still clouded from sleep and his mind still slightly absent in this only half-awake state. The drunk rubbed his red-rimmed eyes and smiled to the room in general, "I had the worst dream. I'm glad it wasn't true."</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Enjolras and Grantaire face the terrible fate of life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Constant in the Darkness

It took a while for Grantaire to wake, and most of the remaining Amis watched him with increasing amusement.

"No, this is a wonderful occasion," said Bossuet with a broad grin. "Have you ever seen Grantaire wake up before?"

"I am proud to say I have not, my friend," replied Courfeyrac.

Joly grinned. "I never thought I would say this, but he manages to be adorable. Like a small child, but uglier."

"I have seen many ugly children, Joly," Courfeyrac said. "None were quite so ugly as the child before me."

Enjolras glared at them from the corner, but it was not as harsh as usual and it was quite obvious that he was hiding a smile.

A groaning noise came from the drunk at the table.

Grantaire was finally awakening. He took a few moments to make nonsensical noises and look around the room with bleary, bright blue eyes. When he saw the people who had waited in the room with him, his smile brightened.

"Why is he so adorable?" Courfeyrac muttered, unnoticed by the tired drunk.

"I had a ridiculous dream," he murmured with a lazy smile. Bossuet sat down in a chair beside him and Grantaire curled up against him. "Everyone here was a different person. Courfeyrac was Bossuet, and he therefore had no hair. Combeferre was Joly - where is he, by the way?"

"Combeferre or me?" Joly asked.

"Combeferre, of course," Grantaire said. "And you were Bahorel."

Joly spluttered at that, making everyone laugh, before joining them in their amusement. "Combeferre has left to join his mistress tonight."

Grantaire hummed. "I wasn't aware he had one. Is she nice?"

"We're not sure if she's a she, actually," Joly mused. "But he should know that we would not judge him. I have Bossuet."

"Anyway," Grantaire continued. "Bahorel was Combeferre, Bossuet was Courfeyrac, and I was Enjolras. Marius was me and Enjolras was Marius."

"Who was that girl he sees?" asked Courfeyrac excitedly, leaning in and hushing his voice to a stage whisper.

Grantaire adopted the same tone and position when he replied, " _Patria_."

"I heard that!" Enjolras called from his far-off table, a quiet chuckle from his own lips mingling with the loud laughs of the others.

-

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

Grantaire hurried through the street in a drunken stupor, stumbling over a dug-up paving stone. He glanced behind him at a shriek that was cut off by the sound of a bayonet slicing a spinal cord in half. That was a noise that Grantaire hoped he would never recognise, and a fate he hoped would never befall any of the eight figures who appeared through his wine-induced haze. The face he saw in that brief look was that of Joly.

He felt vomit rise in his throat, but made it to the Corinth before emptying his stomach.

Hell, he needed a drink.

This thought allowed him to stumble to the bar and gather as many bottles of wine, whiskey and absinthe as he could carry, focusing on the stronger spirits, and taking them to his favourite table. It was furthest from the carnage that was even on the floor and the large table in the centre of the room, where two human-sized lumps lay under a black sheet. The old man and Gavroche. This thought led him to uncork the wine and drink it as quickly as he could without bringing up bile again.

Eventually, surrounded by bottles, he fell into a deep slumber, not caring when the cannons fired and a familiar voice screamed.

-

The silence woke him, and he looked up absently. His gaze was still clouded from sleep and his mind still slightly absent in this only half-awake state. The drunk rubbed his red-rimmed eyes and smiled to the room in general, "I had the worst dream. I'm glad it wasn't true."

That was when he saw.

An Achilles letting out a deathly scream as though he was seeing Patroclus's corpse on the floor, his screams and wails echoing through the empty room. He was unmarred by wounds, though his body was covered in grime. His eyes were screwed shut and his mouth, red and soft as rose petals, was pulled wide open over his pearly teeth, which were bared mid-scream. Clutched in his fists was the scarlet flag of their rebellion, and strewn nearer to the door was a tricolour flag. Only the latter words of _La liberté ou la mort_ were visible.

Grantaire stared as Enjolras began to tear the flag unconsciously. Eventually Grantaire managed to pull himself down to the dusty, bloodstained floor, fumbling without seeing for a full bottle of wine. He had skipped straight to the stronger stuff before finishing off all of the wine he had taken to the table so as to send himself to that dark, calm place drunkenness took him when he glanced out of the window at the precise moment that Bossuet was shot through his shiny bald skull.

"Enjolras," he said quietly, his voice shaking. "Enjolras, let go of the flag."

His screams quieted eventually after Grantaire eased the scarlet flag from his vicelike fingers and replaced the cloth with his own hands, which were beginning to grow numb at the fingertips from Enjolras's strong grip. When the man was silent, he picked up the bottle on the floor, uncorked it with his back teeth and handed it to Enjolras hesitantly.

"Here. It'll make everything better."

Enjolras stared at him, completely despondent. Grantaire's hands trembled hen he realised that Enjolras wasn't turning away and sneering; instead seeming to seriously contemplate downing the entire bottle.

Grantaire closed his eyes before meeting Enjolras's despairing gaze again. "It will make it easier to manage. And, if there is one thing that the circle of Hell we know as Life has taught me, it would be that you need all the help you can get with that."

The blonde boy took the bottle of wine and took a swig, wincing at the taste.

-

To be honest, it wasn't the most glorious of deaths.

They were staggering from the latest wineshop that they had been banned from, clinging to each other as though their lives depended on it. Enjolras stumbled on a loose paving stone and they both fell to the floor, though the blonde was underneath Grantaire, cushioning his fall.

"'Jolrasss…" he slurred, eyes wide as he scrambled up, gathering the man in his arms.

He somehow made his way back to their shared apartment as though in a dreamlike state and washed the blood off of Enjolras's temple. He left a gentle kiss and a slight red stain from the wine on the blonde's bared neck. Something felt off; just slightly wrong. Grantaire ignored this and carried Enjolras to bed, curling up beside him and wrapping his arms around Enjolras's skeletal ribs.

When the morning came, Enjolras still didn't wake. Grantaire, in a state of near-complete sobriety, stroked Enjolras's throat with his thumb, searching for a pulse.

Of course, there was none.

It was Grantaire's turn to fall onto his knees and scream. He had been sent to his own Hell; where all of his sins had been given to the the Icarus who he loved to watch soar; where he made his own wax wings to try and join him; where even then, Enjolras flew higher.

Enjolras fell.

Enjolras drowned.

Grantaire stumbled out of the house, still in his clothes from yesterday, and found a wineshop that they had paid all their debts to. He bought the strongest drinks he could find, having observed the power of the Grim Reaper in the form of alcohol in other drunks. Surely it would work for him.

He sat next to Enjolras, who he had moved gently to lie straight with his hands crossed over his chest, and began to drink the first bottle. The bitter taste immediately sent him back to a moment in a now-shut café that Grantaire could no longer remember the name of, with Bossuet sitting in front of him, sprawled over the chair and drinking one of Grantaire's half-finished bottles in order to dull the feeling of the huge bruise running down his side before Grantaire started another bottle and Joly came to pick him up.

Bahorel used to have a goatee that matched his auburn moustache, and which he waxed almost religiously. He often had cuts and bruises on his strong-jawed face, which enhanced its rugged attractiveness to grisettes unlike the same would do to Grantaire. He had strong hands and huge biceps, which often led to friendly claps on the back requiring Bahorel to pick his unfortunate victim back up afterwards. The same hands, however, poured out liberal amounts of absinthe and knocked back jug after jug of the liquid, matching Grantaire almost exactly.

Feuilly wouldn't drink too often; only a bottle at most after a day at work. He hardly had any money that wasn't spent on rent, food or books. His fingers had only even done four different things in front of Grantaire: hold a bottle of wine, hold food, fold paper and rest. Grantaire had had no inclination that Feuilly had done more with those slender fingers. Enjolras had venerated him. That was enough for Grantaire to create a full picture of the man.

Jean Prouvaire was tiny, but could drink more than was expected of him. He rarely had more than a glass, however, and would get tipsy enough to laugh jovially instead of his normal small giggle. His round cheeks would flush deeply in this state of slight drunkenness. He became tactile and would cling to a single Ami for the rest of the night. More often than not, it had been Grantaire, who was only too willing to hold his friend to distract him from the golden god writing at another table.

That thought caused Grantaire to glance at Enjolras's body and start on another bottle.

Combeferre drank only a little more than Enjolras did in those days. When he was offered a glass of wine, he would accept unless he could not afford any dulling of his polished silver mind. Courfeyrac, on the other hand, drank for fun. He was capable of laughing brashly and warmly, which only became amplified as he became more and more intoxicated, on wine or on revolution.

Enjolras and Grantaire were no longer capable of that, or, in the former's case, never able to at all. They only lived with a hint of their former selves when they were with each other. Otherwise, they languished in melancholia at the loss of their friends and the future.

 _Vive l'avenir_ , indeed.

Grantaire felt himself drifting away; his body joining his heart. He closed his eyes and succumbed to the complete and utter blackness that had surrounded him entirely ever since Enjolras died, despite the fact that the sun was at its peak in the midday sky.

-

When he opened his eyes, Enjolras was there, with his halo of golden curls and blue eyes full of passion.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from A Case of You by Joni Mitchell.


End file.
